Chlöe Bailey honored Dionne Warwick with more than her song during the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honors
The star paid homage to the legend through her style, including an innovative wig over locs style by hair poet Fesa Nu.
From her pitch-perfect rendition of “Walk on By” to the rose pink gown, the diamond-encrusted jewelry, and the shiny black pixie cut, Chlöe Bailey evoked Dionne Warwick during her tribute to the legend during the 46th annual Kennedy Center Honors.
“Timeless,” she began in an Instagram post caption about the night. “What an honor it was to sing and celebrate Dionne Warwick at the Kennedy Center in front of the president and many of my inspirations. [U]nforgettable night.”
According to the hair poet and collaborator of Bailey’s, Fesa Nu, Bailey wanted to “embrace all aspects” of Warwick.
Nu, who worked with Bailey on her Kennedy Center Honors look with just under a week to finalize it, told People magazine, “Chloe shared a variety of looks, some longer bobs, some short, but I just knew I wanted a pixie because we never tried that sort of a wig on her locs — and I wanted something Chloe had not done yet.”
On Instagram, the hair artist explained that in order to pull off the look she used two wigs to cover Bailey’s locs. She specified that she did not cut Bailey’s locs and the singer backed up that claim in a video of her own where she displayed the intricate process and declared, “There are locs under this wig!”
“Dear Loc girlies please don’t cut your loc’s [and] reattach them,” Nu wrote in the caption of her post.
She continued with a bit of styling advice for those with locs, “I don’t always use [two] wigs but If you have a lot of loc’s [and] want a shorter look I suggest [two] maybe even [three]. The more the loc’s the less the wig coverage you’ll have.”
Nu noted that while she’s “still learning” how to perfect a flatter base, the braid-down method is a no-go for her, “because braiding locs can make it bulky under [the] wig.”
“I hope this helps my beautiful loc’d sista’s,” she added.
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Nu, who has worked with Bailey for five years, is a Texas native with a penchant for pushing the boundaries of creativity with hair styling. What began for her as a hobby grew into an occupation and then something more.
When speaking to People, she said, “As I got older, I really wanted to connect deeper with my African roots, so I traveled to South Africa [where her mother is from] and found myself so inspired by my people and our hair, which led me into the more creative hair space.”
Since then, Nu describes herself as a “hair poet,” and views her often gravity-defying sculptural styles as art. She added, “I felt different when I created different looks, and it felt so poetic.”
Nu is the brain behind some artistic iconic looks of recent history, including Ava DuVernay for the cover of British Vogue, Tracee Ellis Ross on the cover of Crwnmag, and Yara Shahidi for an Adidas campaign.
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